Orange County commissioners on Tuesday are expected to approve formal language for two agreements that, once enacted, will revise the terms under which the county houses federal inmates detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Commissioners and Mayor Jerry Demings voted unanimously on April 21 to revise those terms. But their vote didn’t immediately activate the changes. The new terms won’t take effect until after they’re approved by the county commission, plus both of the federal agencies involved in the agreements – ICE and the U.S. Marshals Service.
Following Tuesday’s expected vote of approval, District 1 Commissioner Nicole Wilson said, the ball will then go back to those agencies. “This is the final sort of agenda item that … puts the stamp on the envelope, if you will, to send it over to the other parties.”
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Two types of agreements
State law requires Orange County to have some kind of agreement in place with ICE for housing immigration detainees, and to use its “best efforts” to support federal immigration enforcement.
Right now, the county has an Intergovernmental Service Agreement (IGSA) with USMS. The IGSA includes a section pertinent to ICE. On April 21, county commissioners voted to terminate the ICE section of the county’s IGSA and replace it with a Basic Ordering Agreement (BOA).
Under a BOA, the county may release immigration detainees after 48 hours, reduced from the 72-hour detention timeframes set by ICE.
Across Florida, most counties have a BOA in place instead of an IGSA, according to District 5 Commissioner Kelly Martinez Semrad. Orange is one of only seven county jails with an IGSA, according to a 2025 presentation from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Lay of the land
For more than a year, amid President Donald Trump’s campaign of aggressive immigration enforcement, Central Floridians have been sounding alarms about an alleged lack of due process for people being held on immigration-only charges at the Orange County Jail. Some local elected officials, including Wilson and Martinez Semrad, have echoed the concerns.
County staff have maintained their hands are largely tied.
“When those state law enforcement agencies make, in their determination, a lawful arrest and bring them to our jail, we have to book them, so to speak. Our only course is to seek reimbursement for our costs in doing so,” Deputy County Administrator of Public Safety Danny Banks said last year.
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Orange County’s current IGSA includes a reimbursement rate of $88 a day per inmate. That rate, not updated since 2011, falls far short of what county officials say is the true cost of housing an inmate: $180 per day.
Now, following negotiations with USMS and once the new IGSA becomes active, Orange County’s reimbursement rate is set to go up to $125 per inmate per day. But since the county seeks to terminate the ICE section of its IGSA, that rate won’t be applicable to ICE inmates. (Other sections of the IGSA pertain to inmates detained by other agencies, like the Federal Bureau of Investigation.)
Instead, the pending BOA sets a base reimbursement rate of $50 per detainee for a 48-hour period. But state grant funds could help level out the difference and bring the average rate up to $100 per day per inmate, Banks said on April 21.
“Ultimately, as long as the state grant is in place, we would realize about $25 less per day under a BOA than we would under an IGSA,” Banks said.
They voted already, so why no change yet?
Last month, some residents questioned why the county’s 72-hour IGSA framework still remains in effect, following commissioners’ April 21 vote to end it. Groups like Orlando’s branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation asked why the ISGA was still in play despite the vote.
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Although commissioners did vote on April 21 to revise its agreement with ICE, the agreement language itself still needs to be approved. Commissioners will have the opportunity to do that Tuesday.
If passed, ICE has to approve the BOA; then, USMS has to approve canceling the ICE section of the IGSA. It’s not clear how long those federal approvals will take.
Any gap in coverage, without either a BOA or IGSA, would mean the county is in “pure, straight violation of state law,” Wilson said. She wishes it were different: “Disagreeing with it is something I've done since day one.”
Once the BOA takes effect, “the hope is that we get some more assurances of being able to satisfy … the really simple, straightforward due process right of not detaining somebody who shouldn't be detained,” Wilson said.
